The Shift, Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (Part One)

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The Shift, part one

The Shift, Introduction, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 (Part One)

Why I wrote this book, what it is about, who is it for, and what you can expect to get out of it…

Title: The Shift; How to stay sane in a crazy world, feel your feelings, and truly love the life you are creating.

What’s it about? How to manage your energetic state, shift your mindset, take personal responsibility for your own identity, get more of what you want out of life, and become the master of your own destiny.

What’s the point of the book? Your life is your responsibility. When we live in the turbulent mainstream, a victim mindset and self-limiting beliefs make us more miserable than we need to be. Identifying as a victim is a miserable way to be and we need more of us to step up and be responsible citizens/humans/earthlings…consciousness is always evolving!

Identifying as a savior or martyr might feel better, but in the long run, it only propagates the victim-savior cycle. This cycle creates systemic inflammation and dysregulation in human bodies. There are different energetic states available to us, and we can learn to navigate them with better results.

What’s the hook? Easy two-minute tools anyone can use. Simplicity. (graphics, humor, me) A Framework for Asking Better Questions

Something really good needs to open and set the stage* Greek myth mod maybe?

Zuess: “Choose your battles wisely. Nope. That’s too many battles. Put some battles back.” (create meme)

*Remember, life is much too important to take it very seriously. Go lightly, and do your best to breathe and smile.

Here we are. (We are here, map of consciousness, subconscious, superconsciousness, human history, the cosmos)

Welcome to the Shift. (Why I wrote this book and who it is for)

I wrote this book because of my own struggles and the struggles of people all around me. As a neurodivergent person, I often feel emotions to an exceptionally high degree. It has taken me decades to come to my current understanding of how this can be detrimental and also valuable. This is an ongoing process, and I do not expect to reach a state of ‘perfection’ in my journey.

I often come across people advising that emotions are not to be trusted, and also people who use suppression and denial as tools for financial success. While I do understand that ‘being emotional’ is often associated with being dysregulated, I have learned that they are the same thing. We are feeling emotions all the time. We become aware of them when they are out of sync, or discordant with our values, or need our attention, and then we call them feelings.

When you notice that you are feeling your emotions, and notice they are causing turbulence or dysregulation in your body, that’s a clue that you need to adjust your energy and focus to get back on course and re-align with your core values. Sometimes we feel our emotions more subtly, and call that our intuition. Our subconscious and superconscious beliefs and values are always driving this dynamic dance, behind the scenes of our conscious minds.

In this book, I will lay out some definitions of key terms, so we will have a common language foundation to build on, and then share the tools and strategies that have helped me and others in this human journey. Many of these terms do not have universally accepted definitions, so I encourage you to suspend your beliefs and disbeliefs for a while. Try on some of the concepts I dive into in this book. Use anything you find useful, and leave the rest. I am only an expert at living my own unique life, although I have helped a fair number of other humans navigate their own bumpy roads at times.

This book is for anyone who is struggling with a victim mindset, savior complex, or caught in what I call ‘trauma loops’, or drama that never seems to end. If you are tired of replaying the same patterns over and over while you get older and older, and are not feeling closer to living a life that you truly love, this book is for you. If you are ready to take more personal control of your own destiny and really feel your life more vibrantly, more deeply, and more coherently, this book is for you.

I will present a few basic tools which I think are useful for everyone, and which you can customize to suit your own lifestyle. I will also present a wide array of tools I have explored with a very brief explanation or summary of most of them. This is meant to be an introduction and an overview. I encourage you to look deeper into any that strike a chord or resonate with you.

This book has been through several iterations before final publishing. It was at first going to be called “Two Minute Tools for Emotional Coherence”, and later “Emotional Mastery”. This final iteration has settled into “The Shift”, but you will see reverberations of those earlier iterations throughout.

Self-mastery is really about getting to know yourself, and we do that through our emotions, our actions, and our relationships. Our external and internal circumstances all play a part in our total experience. I have attempted to give a broad and still useful overview of the tools I think are most relevant and useful to the greatest number of people, and that I have extensive personal experience with. The basics or bones of this book are coherence or integrity, awareness of our energetic and emotional state, and a growth mindset.

Are you processing or suppressing your emotions?

Suppression is not the same as processing. Throughout my life, having strong feelings has been the source of much suffering and misunderstandings. Having strong feelings has also been the foundation of a richness that I would not trade for less. Many would say I care too much, and I would say many people would do better to care more.

My strong desire is to help humanity shift from overwhelm and confusion to a more coherent and conscious state. Feeling more does not mean being a slave to our emotions. Many people do a lot to numb or suppress their emotions rather than get curious about what they are really about. We can learn to use our emotions, feelings, and intuition as the navigation tools they are. I truly believe the quality of our lives depends on it.

You have probably noticed that some people seem to be always stuck in drama/trauma loops and others seem to be able to rise above these loops and get much more accomplished in life. Throughout the course of my life, I have been fascinated by this difference. Things happen to all of us, but some people seem to get stronger from the things that happen, and others seem to get beaten down by them. Early on, I noticed that those people who do not get ‘bogged down’ in the ‘trenches of despair’ for long are most often those who can lift themselves up regularly. Rather than moaning or blaming others when they fall, they simply dust themselves off, make small adjustments, and rise again.

This is a skill that comes from taking full responsibility for our own lives, while also being aware of the interconnectedness of all beings. As a species, we have a collective energy. Many people think we are amidst or at the brink of a transformation. I do not have a clear perspective on anything that broad.

I do have a great deal of clarity about the day-to-day practices which lead to what we call a ‘good life’ or what we call a ‘bad life’. The same fluid lines run through ‘good’ and ‘bad’ lives. They are intertwined. Since we are all interconnected on some level; when we lift ourselves up, we also lift many others, and when we sink into despair, we often drag others down with us.

“A rising tide lifts all boats.” Kennedy?

Attempting to ‘get help’ from a victim mindset propagates the victim-perpetrator-martyr triangle and just leads to more trauma and drama in the long run. Trying to ‘save’ others is not much better and still propagates this disempowering dynamic.

The way to escape this downward spiral is to lift ourselves, raise our own energetic level, and shift our mindset to a higher frequency. This is not a new idea. Humans have been writing about this since we created written languages. It is an ongoing truth, though it does seem that the lower levels of consciousness have been gaining ground in recent times, at least, here in the US or the so-called ‘Western World’.

There is evidence all around us that giving up our capacity to think for ourselves and conforming to the programs presented by mass media is not working. In fact, it seems to be causing significant harm to our health and well-being. The current state of things is that suicide is one of the leading causes of death in young men, fertility rates are plummeting around the world, and metabolic dysfunction is becoming ‘the norm’ in many human lives.

In the US autism diagnoses are up 241% since I studied it 20 years ago, and ADHD, CPTSD, anxiety, and a slurry of other capital-lettered disorders are all on the rapid rise. Population rates are plummeting. Homelessness is no longer relegated to the dark alleys and ditches. Metabolic disease is impacting the majority of lives in the US. Evidence of our collective unwellness is on every corner, in every alley, setting up tents under overpasses, and at my front door asking for food. We are all wondering how humanity can be so delusional and inhumane.

Here we are. We are all in this together.

For many of us, the edges are fuzzy and unclear and easy to fall into or trip over. Many people seem to be so overwhelmed by this that they simply check out and spend most of their waking hours distracting themselves with various coping strategies. Many humans seem to be steeped in a hate frenzy and so afraid of everything that we have forgotten how to communicate beyond politics, religion, sexuality, and health care.

When we do talk beyond superficial topics, our conversations are often steeped in personal insults and vitriol. These topics have swung from taboo to impolite to almost the only topics that anyone talks about. Most of us agree that extremes tend to be dangerous, and yet, many of us are swinging between extremes the majority of the time. This is how it seems to me.

We are addicted not just to alcohol, weed, fentanyl, and ketamine; but also to the disempowered poverty mindset, to television programming, social media, sugar, caffeine, hormone injections, infection tests, and drama itself. Blame and shame are prevalent modes of operating.

Negative thinking, limiting beliefs, and the mindset of the victim or the savior (martyr & perpetrator) is at the root of all of this. Nearly everybody has got someone else to blame, or some reason they are unable to fully be who they want to be because they ‘must’ help someone else who needs them. It is increasingly common and even popular to have more than one chronic illness, disability, and a long string of ‘diagnosed dysfunctions’. It all feels truly sick and sickening.

The truth is, this is self-perpetuating. Nearly every single bit of it is self-created.

(“You brought that shit on yourself!” meme)

This has been simmering since long before I was born. In my lifetime it seems to be coming to a roaring boil. Most of us are allowing unfeeling algorithms to dictate what we see and steal our focus through social media.

Self-learning AI and robots with hands are gearing up to flood the market and change many things about the labor market. Human beings seem to be oscillating between “I’m okay-You’re okay” and “I’m pretty fucking far from okay”, with fewer and fewer periods of “truly great” in between.

We are capable of so much more than just being “okay”. We are capable of being fucking fantastic and great.

If we are to survive the upcoming shifts and technological gains, we must uplevel our ability to deal with stress and learn to manage ourselves in healthier ways.

A healthy mind and body can let go of things and get past them. With practice, we can learn to alchemize our emotions and feelings. We can process and compartmentalize them in healthier ways. When we have trouble doing that, it is a sign of illness and dysfunction. That does not mean we are broken or dysfunctional, it simply means we are responding in natural ways to inputs and need to give ourselves extra time-space and compassion. We can examine what we need to help us move through it, let go, and put things into something that at least approximates an ordered state.

You might be astounded at the variability of your capacity, or you might already be aware of it. There are times you will get a great deal done, with few or no mistakes, and other times it feels like you are stuck in second gear; spinning your wheels on high speed and not getting anywhere. All of this is a normal part of being a human in the 21st century.

My mission in writing this book is to help you remember that we are all co-creating our future. Ultimately there is only “now” and there has never been a better time than “right now”. The choices we make — where and how we focus our attention — matter. The energy you bring to life has an impact on your individual life and on the broader collective lives of humanity.

The ‘poverty class’ is not only growing rapidly but the floors and ceilings are being pushed dramatically lower and higher. We are on track to have our first trillion-dollar businesses by 2025, while at the same time, we have rapidly increasing displacement and refugees, and an escalating healthcare crisis. Our food supply is dangerously chemical-laden and our ‘health care system’ has fallen to disease propagation and highly profitable long-term disease management.

Globally, things are less clear. The leaders with the most money assure the rest of us that ‘these are the best times in human history, “except for nature”’. The problem with that is that we are a part of nature, and the majority of us are not healthy.

Many factors add up to indicate that in the US we are the most unhealthy and unhappy population of well-fed humans that history has ever recorded. To add a bit more weight to the ‘irony basket’, our healthcare workers are some of the least healthy and most suicidal among us.

To say things are a mess would be an understatement. Also, to say they are the greatest they have ever been is not wrong. We stand at the precipus between greatness and self-destruction, as I suppose we always have to some extent or another.

(Chicken Little meme)

How I came to write this book:

I grew up like so many humans, with a mixed ‘bag’/hand/deck of positives and negatives. Like so many humans, I did not have a healthy happy family and I did not feel loved or secure a lot of the time. Overall I was cared-for and well-fed. My mother and I did not establish healthy attachments or boundaries. My father was not in my life at all.

My father’s name is not on my birth certificate. My mother did her best to love me but also, she is proud that she was able to ‘use me to heal herself’. I never felt like she got to know me or accepted me for the individual I am. Like so many children of her generation, she came from a family that valued making money and cultivating social status much more than raising children. I have also come to understand that she is even ‘more neurodivergent’ than I am. It is likely that she was bullied and excluded by her peers and family to an even greater degree than I was.

My parents were abused and neglected by their own parents, which again, is difficult to put into context in this technological age of rapid change. Each generation lives in a different time and has a different history. We are always doing the best we can with what we have, from where we are. My parents were like most parents in that regard.

I appreciate that when it came to raising me, my mother’s perspective and standards were quite different from mine. From my perspective, she oscillated between overfeeding me, gushing over me to others, ignoring me completely, giving me ‘the silent treatment’, or looking away or covering her eyes. My mother frequently rejected me and eventually made me a ‘ward of the state’ in an effort to scare me out of or as punishment for becoming a sexual being. She continues to scorn me as contemptible for many reasons, despite our continued attempts to have a functional relationship.

I learned very early to override my own feelings and needs and attune to my mother’s needs, and to the needs of others around me. I have spent the majority of my life swinging between victim and savior and perpetrator mindsets. Until just a few years ago, I fully believed this was how to love and be loved. I now see things much differently.

My maternal grandfather was a fairly wealthy, successful engineer, and early on I noticed the differences between how ‘the rich’ and ‘the poor’ live, think, and act. It was striking to me at an early age, and my mother remembers me scolding her when I was 5–6 for not having enough money.

When I was 13, my mother rejected me aggressively, and I was incarcerated for a short time as a ward of the state. That changed me significantly. Incarceration, or being locked in a cement cage and shunned by the very humans who are charged with instilling love and healthy relationships has, as one might imagine, extreme and long-lasting effects. It damages both, the humans in the cages, and the humans who hold the keys. One of my strongest passions is to help humanity improve the way we handle ‘civil disobedience’, sexuality, and abandoned, neglected, and abused children.

The vast majority of children in juvenile detention centers have been neglected and abused, and many have traumatic brain injuries and other significant issues before they are locked up. This makes putting them in cages even more insane and cruel. Like a majority of humans, my mother uses her religious beliefs to justify any means to her own ‘good feelings’. She defaults to the idea that we will come back through reincarnation and so have many more opportunities to remedy things. Somehow, she uses that to justify not exploring new ideas and not trying to improve or remedy anything in this life. I reject this idea wholeheartedly. I believe that even if we do have many lifetimes to figure things out, it makes more sense to make the most out of this life and do what we can to improve and learn from our mistakes all along the way.

Summary of my personal history:

I dropped out of high school and lived on the streets for several years of my teens. During that time I saw many things and experienced many traumas that many ‘mainstream’ members of society remain sheltered from. I was raped, beaten, arrested, ripped off, trusted, and betrayed; many times. I was taken in by some bikers for a time in my late teens and learned a lot about crime and how the black market works. I lived in the ‘underbelly of society’, which ‘mainstream’ pretends not to see, but which is always there in the alleys and always coursing through every faction of society.

In my 20’s I became a mother and began studying various healing modalities, trying to keep myself and my son healthy. I started a business selling herbs and oils and cosmetic supplies, became a massage therapist, and also continued my studies with martial arts, moving meditations, dance, and yoga. I also became interested in biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, neuroscience, patterns of earth and man, ceramics, site-specific art, and storytelling. I completed a year and a half of premed study to become a surgeon before realizing the medical school I was attending was funded by big pharma and insurance companies. I realized I would have to live discordant with my own values in order to try to help people through that system, so I quit.

In my 30s, I earned two MA degrees, one in business/Organizational Management and another in Special Education. I took a special interest in neurodivergence and brain science. I am fascinated by the way that stories and symbols affect our subconscious and then manifest in our identities, creating patterns which then determine our behaviors and outcomes in life.

It is our mindset, the stories we tell about ourselves, and the way we interpret the stories others tell us, and tell about us, that impact what we think. Ultimately our beliefs and values impact what we choose to do, and dictate the kind of life we have.

In my mid-to-late-40s I had a series of events that brought me around to face many of my early traumas from a new framework. It was more difficult than I might have anticipated. I was raped again. I was publically shunned and felt humiliated for articulating my beliefs. I was again reminded of how little our society values aging women in many ways.

I lost my business and most of my friends. I had an intimate partnership that went from incredible and empowering to dismal and confusing. That rift and the gap between trust and confusion ripped open many of my past traumas and unhealed wounds. I became aware of many unresolved feelings I had from my turbulent childhood and acutely aware of the neurodivergent threads that run through my genetic lines.

My aging mother reverted to many old patterns of scorning me. I found myself feeling separate from humanity at large to an extreme degree. That eventually led to another round of emotional, physical, and financial devastation which I barely survived.

Systemic autoimmunity flared through new and old parts of my body. I became overwhelmed with severe anxiety, panic attacks, CPTSD, mood swings, rage, sadness, numbness, and pain. My body was declining rapidly and I began to think the doctors who had condemned me to a miserable and early end might be right.

The combination of my personal failures and societal meltdowns found me in a full ‘autistic meltdown’ and dysfunctional rage for several years. I lost my ability to work. My executive function dwindled to barely able to function a few hours some days. I began preparing to die, halfheartedly and without much logic or plan.

I want to live, like most life, but I don’t know how to live in modern society while feeling so crappy and half alive. I really needed help, something to help me, and eventually realized that it was up to me to save myself, as it always has been. The more I needed help, the more society shunned me for being “too needy”.

Here’s the good news:

I am still alive! I am not super wealthy, but I am living a vibrant and unique life. In the year that I have been actively writing this book, I have changed many of my patterns and my body has done some tremendous healing. I shifted my mindset towards relationships that are not aligned with the person I want to be. It is not about judging others or thinking of anyone as ‘toxic’, but instead it is about focusing on what I want to create, and cultivating more coherence and compassion in me.

I am currently 53. I feel like I could easily thrive another 40 years or maybe even more. Daily yoga and meditation and taking full responsibility for my own wellness are keys. Letting go of resentments, asking better questions, eating a diverse range of vegetables, and taking care of my energetic state are also keys that have unlocked new levels of healing for me.

I can shift. You can shift. We can shift. I am shifting. It is both, an instantaneous decision, and an ongoing process, not a destination. There is much reason to have hope if we continue to make this shift, and celebrate the small and large wins along the way.

I invite you to join me. Learn to savor the diversity of flavors life has to offer. Take time to regain coherence and then take action. This book contains a collection of tools and a map to create a more vibrant, more engaged life for yourself and everyone around you.

Consciousness is expanding rapidly, and we are in it. We have choices, and we will navigate them best from calm coherent, collaborative states. Coherence is not hard. It comes naturally when we stop making things harder than they have to be.

Much like tuning a musical instrument, it simply takes a bit of focus and awareness of what ‘in tune’ sounds like, or feels like. This naturally also requires becoming more aware of what dischordance, or being ‘out of tune’ feels like. If you take the time to tune yourself into the person you want to be, I am confident it will be worth it. You will be making your own life better, and also making the lives of others better, now and into our collective future.

We are wiser than we think. We are resilient. We might be on the leading edge of creation, of expanding consciousness, of everything good. Our bodies have incredible untapped potential.

There are many great examples of this all around you. Notice how those who struggle the hardest are often the strongest, most resilient, and most capable. Also notice that many humans use up a lot of energy struggling when there really is no point to it.

“The struggle is real, and it is also made up.”

Your shadow is your gift!!!

It is not all ‘for nothing’ if you choose to make it into something better. You can choose. When people look back at the end of their lives, more often than not, everything that seemed like an unreasonable challenge makes sense. We create the majority of suffering in our own lives, and you can learn to get out of your own way more often, and heal much more rapidly.

“Argue for your limitations and surely they will be yours.” Richard Bachman?*

This is your invitation to help me write a better end to my personal story and a better story for humanity at large. The key is to rewrite your own personal story. If you do that for you, and I do it for me, then we have hope of doing it collectively.

We won’t fix our problems from the same mindset we create them. It is inevitable that we shift into a next level of consciousness, or fall away to extinction. Perhaps it will be both — a little from ‘column A’ and a little from ‘column B’. We will see, we will see…

What makes me qualified to write this book?

I am intimately familiar with the underbelly of humanity in ways that I have come to appreciate that most Americans are not. I am glad it seems many humans never will be. Many others, however, in fact, perhaps a majority of humanity, live in this underbelly, out on the fringes of ‘mainstream society’.

Many do this unconsciously. Being incarcerated in my teens, raped several times, and shunned by my own mother regularly, has given me strength and clarity about how to hold myself responsible for my own well-being. Being a therapist and spending a good deal of my energy trying to help others at my own expense without healthy boundaries has also brought me many lessons.

I hope that by sharing some of my own journey, I can inspire you to take the reigns of your own life. Become the captain of your own ship. Learn to set healthy boundaries and claim the personal power that comes from becoming the master of your own destiny.

Those of us who do read and write and have time to contemplate systems and institutions will be wise to keep in mind that the masses of human energy that propagate the systems that we call ‘civilization’ are sensitive, feeling animals. We are human. We are dynamically feeling and caring, electromagnetic creatures. Our hearts are pouring out, even when we are not aware of it.

There is much work to be done. This, darling dear brave one, is your invitation, your dare; our challenge.

I think we are up for it.

In researching and writing this book, I read more than a hundred of the top/most popular books on trauma, healing, PTSD, and anxiety. I also read a lot about human emotions, brain chemistry, and emotional regulation. Throughout my life, I have studied and synthesized dozens of healing modalities, including Swedish massage, Thai yoga, tai chi, qi gong, myofascial release, trigger point therapy, nerve entrapment release techniques, reiki, sound healing, aromatherapy, western herbology, Chinese medicine, psychology, NLP, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, and more.

Focusing on flow state, or energetic coherence has been the most useful strategy overall. I have studied and utilized aspects of the flow state cycle and have been able to use these tools to pull myself out of dysregulated states, regain my sanity, and bring myself through many cycles of dysfunction and function.

I have studied extensively and in my studies, I have confirmed for myself again and again that no one has this life ‘all figured out’. We are all just living it as best we can. No one else can know what secret gifts are waiting to unfold and bloom in you.

In my studies, I have also compiled and built a framework of questions that anyone can use to help re-balance emotional dysregulation that gets registered as ‘trauma’ in the body. These are not new questions, and I am not the first to compile them, nor will I be the last.

Asking yourself the right questions is a key that can unlock so many ‘next levels’ of any life. I hope this book will be a useful guide and index of tools that will help give you hope and practical, useful tools you can learn to use to improve your life.

The Shift is that internal flip that we all make when we decide to make a change. It happens in an instant when we decide we are worthy of our own love. It begins with a simple and firm decision to let go of resentments, blame, and shame. It is also an ongoing process that never ends.

Just like physical fitness and personal hygiene, emotional regulation and shifting your mindset takes regular practice to see positive results. Lighten your load by letting go of the baggage from your past and make the necessary changes to move forward.

Often the realization that we must do this only comes after we have hit or bounced off from ‘rock bottom’. If you are currently feeling very low, please know there is hope, things can turn around, perhaps faster than you think. Let’s get into it.

(Recap/Summary of Intro)

The Shift is an ongoing process, not a destination. Start where you are and begin to shift with intention and clarity. You may be amazed at how much more fulfilling your life can be.

I believe in using what is available, that nature has everything we need in a single seed, and that we make things harder than they have to be, chronically, classically.

I believe wisdom is whatever works, and there is not one way to become a fully alive, vibrant, thriving being.

I believe we are interconnected, contagious to one another, and everything we do and say is at once both insignificant and reverberates throughout the fabric of time-space.

My original intention was a book of two-minute tools for emotional regulation, with fun graphics that anyone can use to gain more calm, more coherence, and put more of YOU back into yourself. In gathering and sifting through all the information I needed, I was reminded over and over again of my training in education, of individualized education plans and our human need to be seen, to be witnessed, and also to buck up, roll up our sleeves, and enjoy doing hard things.

This book is about self-mastery, and how to use our emotions to help guide us without being overwhelmed or swamped by them. It is about taking responsibility for ourselves and each other and building a better future together.

We got this.

Let’s ride.

“Some people believe in Fate, others don’t. I do, and I don’t. It may seem at times as if invisible fingers move us above like puppets on strings. But for sure, we are not born to be dragged along. We can grab the strings ourselves and adjust our course at every crossroad, or take off at any little trail into the unknown.”

― Thor Heyerdahl — ‘Kon Tiki’

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The Shift, Get Your Mojo Running, Chapter 1 (Part One)

You are the secret sauce you’ve been waiting for…

Chapter 1: You are the secret sauce you have been waiting for.

Probably the most important key to making the most of your life is taking personal responsibility for it. Whatever upbringing you did or didn’t get, whatever stories you have built your identity around, ultimately, you are the one who is going to live with every decision you make. It’s worth taking a regular pause to reflect on your decisions and make sure they are aligned with your values.

Living out of alignment with our personal values is the cause of a great deal of dysregulation among us. An important part of this is realizing that you are more capable than you might think. Maybe you have been led to believe that you are broken, defective, or dysfunctional. I assure you, brave one, there is no single label that can be put over you that describes you completely. Your untapped potential is a great deal more vast than even that.

Right now you might be thinking, “Yeah but…”, or “Not me” or “You don’t know…”.

The thing is, I have seen and experienced a lot of the underbelly of humanity. I have seen the dark threads of highly esteemed families and the bright hopes that run in the gutters and dark alleys unseen by most of humanity. I assure you, dear one, you are no more or less than any other creature on this earth.

Consider the thousands of humans who have triumphed against greater odds than this. Consider the starlings and ravens and coyotes and whales. Consider the unique resilience of a knarled pine tree growing in the cracks of stone cliffs for five thousand years against the freezing dry wind.

You are stronger and wiser and more capable than you think, dear one. So snuggle in tight, and let’s begin.

No one is coming to save you.

There is no knight in shining armor, no fairy godmother, no genie in a bottle, no baby Jesus, no twin flame lover that is on their way to save the day. Even if there was, no one else is going to be able to ‘make you’ into the person you want to become. You are the only one qualified to take up the full-time occupation of becoming your best self.

The good news about that is, you can start today! Stop waiting for someone or something else to come along and save you, make things better, or help you figure out how to clean up your mess. Everyone else is busy with their own lives, darling, so any time they have left over for you will be just that, leftovers.

You are worth much more than crumbs and scraps. You are worthy of your own whole, unconditional love. You are enough. You have always been enough. You will always be enough. Also, you can be more, and/or less. Change is our only constant. No one else is ever going to care more about your life than you do.*

I am sure you have heard all this before. I hope I can convince you to take positive action today. You don’t need permission. You don’t have to wait for any special revelation. You can begin today, right now, with a simple internal shift.

You can raise your own consciousness. It does take practice to build momentum, and it does get easier over time, although even as it does, life will continue to unfold in ways that surprise and sometimes delight you. No one gets out alive, and the challenges of becoming your best self are ongoing.

You don’t have to become anything, and you don’t owe anyone anything, however, you probably have a lot of untapped potential that you can still grow into, and you might want to. You are the only one of your particular kind, the only one exactly like you in this exact position in space and time. You owe it to yourself to find out more about what you can do, don’t you?

Oh I know it’s hard sometimes. Our brains naturally look for and find whatever is missing, wrong, or potentially dangerous. Even if everything is fine, an undisciplined or dysregulated mind will spiral into the ‘pit of despair’ again and again. Trauma loops and self-defeating behaviors devour entire lifetimes. Let’s not let that be you, or your story.

With great responsibility, comes great power.

Recognize, Realize, and Decide to Take Responsibility for your life.

We are all familiar with the saying “With great power comes great responsibility”, but have you considered that the inverse is also true? With great responsibility, comes great power. So, the first step in making a positive change in your life is to realize that no one else is going to be able to make that change for you. No one else is going to care more about your life and put more time, effort, or caring attention into you achieving your desires than you.

Let that sink in deeply because it is really at the heart of the shift you are going to make. Once you realize that you are not living the life you desire and you recognize that it is because of the choices YOU are and are not making, as well as the energetic framework you are making them from, then you are ready to take responsibility for living your one, true, amazingly fantastic life.

You will need to DECIDE to take full responsibility for your own life in order to live it fully, and, as far as I know, you are the only one in all of existence who is currently qualified. The good news is, once you decide to step fully into becoming your vibrantly alive, creative self, you are going to find yourself opening doors you might have never dreamed you could open, and achieving dreams as regularly as you can bring them fully into your consciousness.

Does this mean you will never suffer or struggle again? No.

Does it mean you won’t feel the grief that comes from losing what you love? No.

Does it mean you won’t ever feel the guilt or shame that comes from making choices that are not aligned with your truest, most authentic self? Probably not.

The human experience is full of dualities and contrasts. I do believe that you really can’t get it wrong and it never ends, or at least, it lasts this entire lifetime. I really don’t know what happens after that, so I won’t pretend that I do.

This might seem anticlimactic, but it is also where it gets exciting! You are stepping into your full power. Many people never get to the point that they dare to take the reigns of their own lives and play a conscious part in cultivating their life experiences. Congratulate yourself, and also, ‘buckle up’, because some of this could be a ‘bumpy ride’.

“This is not my beautiful life.” (art? — graphic of two frames, beautiful life removed/fractured)

So you realize you are unhappy and something needs to change…

When you realize you are unhappy or in a state of self-induced suffering, notice all the signs. Don’t beat yourself up! This is a good thing. In order to make The Shift, it is helpful to recognize you are unhappy with the way things currently are. The question then becomes — What will you do about it?

What to do now? Mope about, pout, and miss out? Get what you get and like it? How about, taking the reigns, brave heart, and daring to be the responsible adult in your own life? You are the main character; the most impressive villain, and the absolute hero of your own life story.

You can continue to wallow and whine, or spin your wheels in the muck, or thrash about madly, or, or, or… you can learn to ‘simmer down’ make The Shift, and take responsibility for yourself and your life. Is it finally time?

Rather than telling yourself another story about whose fault it is — who did this or didn’t do that that caused you to not do or say the things you wanted to, just stop telling that self-defeating story. I know, I know, “but…this, that and the other thing.” Really though. Just stop. Shift your focus to what you DO want. Recognize that your life is your responsibility. Everyone else is living their lives.

You must make yourself your number one priority, even if, and especially if, you are caring for small children or parents or others depend on you. If you model to them that their needs take priority over yours, you could end up so battered, bitter, and bewildered that no one else seems to care for you the way you care for others. Don’t use the people you love as an excuse for not blooming into your full capacity,

This is a mistake I see so many people make. I have made this mistake many times. We use our love or sense of duty to what is ‘right’ as a reason to sacrifice ourselves and not pursue our truest desires, and in doing that, we squander much of our lifetimes. We feel diminished and repressed and sulky or bitter, rather than excited, vibrant, and exuberant to be alive. Then we spend most of our precious energy trying to manipulate or coerce others into giving us back what we tried to give them.

The problem with that is that no one else asked you to make them and their life a priority over your own life. If you try to leverage this to get them to reciprocate, they are likely to feel resentful and disconnected from you, rather than feeling all that gratitude you might feel you deserve. Your children will eventually grow up to make their own lives their priority, not yours. You are on your own. You only owe yourself your self.

(comic/graphic of two parents and a baby with t-shirts) “Not going to make same mistakes my parents made.” “Doing things differently and consciously.” Baby: “A whole new kind of fucked up.”

Minding the Gap (Willem Defoe?, I have gaps poem? — for smiles.)

Even though gaps do indeed represent potentials and spaces we can grow into, the gap between where we are and where we want to be is the cause of a great deal of self-inflicted suffering. Very often we get to a point in our life where we look around and feel dissatisfied with the life we have created. When we let a long time go by without checking in with ourselves or keeping up with maintenance and upgrades, the gap between what we think we will become and what we actually are grows.

This often leads to what people used to call a ‘midlife crisis’. This is the ‘crisis’ of realizing that you are not living your life authentically, in accordance with who you want to be, or who you really are. It seems to be a common aspect of the ‘human condition’.

This is natural. It happens to pretty much everybody in some way or another. Try not to beat yourself up about it. — You really don’t need to beat yourself up. As it turns out, life will do plenty of that for you.

The best remedy for this increasing gap is to regularly check in with your current state and your expectations and actively work to bring them closer together. This is usually a combination of being more practical and realistic with your expectations and also doing the work required to make progress toward the life you want to create.

If you regularly lament that you are not in great physical shape, while eating ice cream and chips and looking at pictures of super fit people, for example, you are increasing the gap. When you increase the gap you are likely to feel increasingly miserable as the distance between what you are and what you want to be continues to grow.

Instead, look at people you admire or things you want and take small action steps to bring yourself closer to that. Go for a walk outside. Invest time in your relationships. Start a savings or investment account. Clean your room. Do the dishes. Say “no thanks” to that bag of chips. You will feel progressively better. It really is that simple.

Maybe it’s your body, your relationships, your finances, or your career that is feeling unsatisfactory. Maybe you feel like you’re just not really stepping into your full potential. Maybe illness or death or despair has sunk its hooks deeply into you and is threatening to take you down.

Maybe you dreamed of exotic travel and passionate weekends at some stage and now life seems to be passing you by and you are beginning to think it may be too late. Perhaps, like me, you were sure you would be ‘independently wealthy’ and collecting sea shells and polished glass on a beach every sunrise and sunset by now. And yet, somehow, some, or maybe even most of it, hasn’t quite panned out the way you hoped for.

Some of us refuse to pay attention to the signs until we reach a real crisis. Incarceration and death or sudden severe injury is often the catalyst that finally inspires us to make a significant shift in our lives. Realizing we are miserable or finding ourselves unable to tolerate the conditions we have created for ourselves is often the wake-up call we finally heed.

spider fem art? *Walkin in a spiderweb –

Recognizing — no one is to blame but it is all your responsibility. (picture of crossroads, choices)

Am I saying everything is your fault and could be under your control? No, I am not saying that at all.

Am I saying you can control everything, even in yourself? Nope. Not at all.

I AM saying that you can learn to control yourself more consciously, more of the time, more successfully, and in doing that, have more potential positive influence in the world, and, if nothing else, live a more vibrant and satisfying life than is likely if you don’t.

Failure is guaranteed, success is not.

Read that again and let it sink in. Failure is a natural outcome if you want to grow, and try new things. Success comes from learning from your mistakes, and mistakes come from trying, failing, adjusting, and trying again. If you are living in alignment with your values, then the journey of life can feel successful, regardless of what goals you achieve and what you do not. If you are living out of alignment with your own values, you will not feel good for long, no matter what you do.

If you are not falling, you are not trying.” Snowboarders everywhere

“The person who has never failed has never tried.”

Why does it take us so long sometimes to figure this out and decide to make a change? Well, for one thing, the majority of humans still do not do this.

There is ample programming out there that will tell you that you should just follow orders, suppress your desires, stifle your emotions, and keep yourself in line. Conformity sells. It is easier in some ways than taking responsibility for your own unique life. Taking responsibility and being in charge of your own life, including your words, thoughts, actions, and beliefs is hard. It is not for the faint of heart, as they say.

You, dear brave heart, are not faint, and not lazy. And yet, and yet, and yet…

Perhaps you have fallen into the same traps as most humans do. It is not your fault, and ultimately no one is to blame, but it is your responsibility. It is your power, your personal authority over your own life, which you can claim and take back and use to build a life you love.

As it turns out, most of us have not been given the roadmap, the guidelines, or the skillsets we need to keep ourselves healthy and vibrant in our current ‘climates’. It’s not our fault, but it is still our responsibility. In fact, for many of us, it does seem like many of the odds are stacked against us.

Many of us didn’t get that foundation of healthy secure attachments to healthy loving parents and grandparents and other extended family members. Many of us were born into poverty. Some of us were born into the sterile unloving environment that can accompany extreme wealth. Most of us have experienced a variety of overwhelming experiences in which our nervous system was overwhelmed and we shut down into the increasingly ‘popular’ fight, flight, fawn, fuck, or freeze responses of the sympathetic nervous system.

Our chemical-laden environments and food supplies are making it increasingly difficult to be born into and maintain a fully functioning, healthy body. We can warm things up a bit by keeping in mind, that no one gets out of this life alive. I know it tends to be frightening at times, but this can also be a great motivator. None of this is a reason to give up or not try to create a more vibrant life.

Our time here is finite. All this is temporary. Go out and get some life on you, for goodness sake! Remember, we are all in this together, and no other human has perfected being you like you, and only you, can.

“Constant change is afoot. Comfort is still two socks.” ~GAL

Working Definitions of Key concepts:

Before we get into it, please allow me to introduce a few key concepts and terms I will be using in this book. It’s important to note that many of these concepts have a vast body of research, knowledge, and opinions that don’t always agree. I have done my best to come to a clear and concise understanding and use them in a way that is useful (*) here.

The Shift: An opening, a crack beneath the door, where the light gets in Leanord Cohen quote* (graphic of light through cracks)

The shift is a state of change, an energetic liminal or medial state between states of being. It is tiny and subtle, and it is profound and entire. It is in the potential, in the present moment, and ongoing. It is in ‘the now’. It is responding with your fullest capacity to the best of your ability from where you are, with what you have.

The Shift is going ‘all in’ on your choices and actions by being connected to your own frequency, recognizing your own patterns, and learning to work with them. It is becoming the master of your destiny rather than the victim of circumstance. It is an ongoing process, not a destination. The Shift is an energetic state of change. A pattern interrupt. It is sometimes of pause and resetting, or a letting off the gas; and other times it is a pushing hard forward or lifting with more than all your might.

Mastery:

Let’s talk about mastery in general. There are probably a whole lot of meanings that will not be helpful in this context. What I mean by mastery is the ability to make mistakes look good.

“The master has failed more times than the novice has tried.”

It’s not about never failing or never getting things wrong. It’s about doing it so many times in so many different ways that it no longer phases you. It’s about learning to trust yourself, and having confidence in your ability to figure things out; to grow, adapt, and see things through.

Mastery is about getting to know yourself well enough that you can trust in your own skills. Mastery is not being afraid to make mistakes because you have made so many they no longer frighten you. When you are a master of your own destiny, you also have no problem delegating, asking for help, and empowering others so that ultimately the infinite game goes on.

Metaphysics: (graphic of the energetic spectrum, light spectrum, other spectrums, indicating our limited perceptions)

I want to include a note about metaphysics and physics. When we perceive something that is outside our current understanding of physics, we call it metaphysical. Metaphysics to me is not ‘magic’ or miracle, though it might just as well be viewed that way in many contexts. It is the science of energetics. What cannot be seen is still very much a part of the fabric of our lives. Just because we do not fully understand something yet, does not mean it does not exist or is not relevant.

For the purposes of this journey, I will use metaphysics to mean the physical properties of things that is beyond our ability to easily comprehend. It literally means the larger physics. It does not mean magic or mystical, although sometimes it may seem that way.

To ignore the metaphysical seems foolish, just as it seems unwise to pretend we understand fully the things that are as yet still beyond our understanding. This is part of the beautiful, mysterious nature of life, and I suppose why it is often folded in with religious stories and all the wonderful archetypes humans use to try to make sense of the things that are outside our current understanding.

Emotional Fitness (fitness graphic/art?)

Everything or nearly everything you have ever apologized for, or wanted an apology for, was probably tangled up in at least some emotional dysregulation. Becoming emotionally fit is about being able to recognize when we are becoming dysregulated and take the necessary steps to bring ourselves back to a regulated state, without lashing out, blaming, wallowing in shame or self-loathing, or needing to employ any of the many often self-harming coping strategies such as overconsuming sugar or alcohol, watching mindless or even negative programming, or you-fill-in-the-blank with whatever came to mind when you read that.

Emotional fitness is being able to feel and express emotions in healthy ways without being overwhelmed or ruled by them. Many of us go through life either suppressing our emotions or becoming overwhelmed by them. If you suppress your emotions, especially those negative ones that many of us are taught are not acceptable, you could create dysfunction that permeates your body.

I believe the autoimmune issues I have dealt with most of my life are largely the result of learning to suppress negative emotions. This began in infancy and continues today. My mother does not handle emotions very well. By focusing more and more on fantasies and false positivity, I created more and more discordance in my body, which then manifests itself as dysfunction and disease.

If you grew up or spent time in an environment where it was not safe to be yourself at times, you are likely to have learned some coping strategies that might not be serving you well in adulthood. Avoidance and anxiety about having feelings can create a cascade of emotions that can lead us to become dysregulated. Many of us live in a state of ‘regular dysregulation’.

Emotional dysregulation has become such a common state that many of us are wandering through our days and nights barely able to cope. It eats away at our energy and consumes huge portions of our lives. The current epidemic rises in mass shootings, chronic illness, genocide, and suicide are symptoms of this underlying issue.

Trying to handle the intensity of my emotions, and also learn to deal with many people who have not learned how to feel or express emotions in healthy ways has been a major theme in my life. I am passionate about shifting that in my own life and in the lives of as many other humans as I can. It hurts us all when we are chronically dysregulated. Love is contagious. So is dysregulation and hate.

Intuition vs Feelings

For many of us, the ideas of feelings, emotions, and intuitive impulses are all mixed up. If you are like me, your feelings might feel like a tangled messy ball of impossible intensity, with every thread containing another messy story and more tangled-up feelings.

If you are one of the increasing numbers of humans who do not have the same neural pruning as the ‘majority’, then you might find yourself responding in ways that others do not understand or find inappropriate. It is important to spend time cultivating a healthy relationship with yourself if you want to take good care of yourself. To really get to ‘know thyself’, you will need to spend time with yourself. Journaling, meditation, and creative, artistic expression are all wonderful ways to develop a healthier relationship with yourself.

So, what’s the difference between emotions, feelings, and intuitions? (summarize briefly)***

In my studying for this book, I quickly learned that there is no consensus about what any of these actually are. Different disciplines use different definitions, and many of us use emotions and feelings interchangeably.

Feelings and Emotions, and Intuition

We often use these terms interchangeably. In my quest to better understand and articulate what it means to be emotionally fit, I quickly ran into the muddy waters. Various schools of study and thought agree and disagree. There is no consensus on a single definition for any of these terms.

Ultimately, a high number of researchers have spent a lot of time and money concluding the same things any of us probably could: People have a lot of mixed feelings and we are not very good at expressing them in healthy ways. We are both, seemingly ruled by our emotions and also — mostly in agreement that too much of them is bad and overly emotional people are best avoided.

One problem arises in definitions. Many of us use ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’ interchangeably, but it is worth making a distinction, at least for this book. Keep in mind, these are working definitions, and are meant to point towards concepts. All of these are complex. Feelings, emotions, and intuition are terms that humans have been exploring as long as we have been keeping track of things.

I am not purposing that my definitions are the correct or only ones. I am setting these definitions here as a way of assuring we have a common language, at least in the pages of this book.

Emotions are the chemical and electromagnetic responses that our bodies (and microbiomes, and surrounding/connecting/entangled bodies?) are having all the time. They are constantly occurring, and constantly being processed. We are emotional beings, and this is essential ‘the language of this meat machine’ we/you call ‘my body’.

Emotions only get our attention when our system perceives that something is arry, or needs us to shift our attention.

Feelings are the stories we make up to explain what we notice, or how we are interpreting our emotions. They are often based on inaccurate, distorted, and incomplete interpretations of our emotions. Feelings are not facts, but they are our interpretations of messages from our nervous system. Feelings contain important information.

Intuition is that feeling we get when we are tuning in to our emotions with less of that misaligned discordance. It is the feeling we get when we become aware of a slight adjustment or shift we can make to be in sync with our ‘higher self, or what I will refer to as our subconscious and superconscious.

By changing the stories we tell about our emotions, we can change how we feel. By changing how we feel, we can change the feedback loop. When we change the loop, we raise our energetic frequency and soothe the erratic eruptions and unconscious patterns playing out in our lives. The feedback loop for changing our behaviors in order to help us change our stories is in our emotions, feelings, and intuition…it is all interconnected.

Let that sink in for a few minutes and circle back to it.

Asking the right questions is a key that makes the difference between success and failure in so much of life.

Feelings are often polarized. We think of them as “good” or “bad”. They often result in or are the result of unbalanced thoughts. We become aware of our feelings when they become more acute, or when we consciously tap into our emotions. We can use our feelings and conscious thoughts as guidance to do the necessary work to transmute our weaknesses into strengths.

Emotions and the feelings that result from them are telling you where you are unbalanced, out of alignment. They are your body’s signaling system to alert you that there is something that needs your attention. At a foundational level, our animal bodies are programmed to seek prey/food/reproductive opportunities and avoid discomfort, predators, and things that might harm us.

This system is necessary and beautifully designed. It has been honed over thousands or even millions of years. When we become aware of an emotion, the story we tell ourselves about it becomes a feeling, we give it a name, and if we stop there, we integrate that into our reality, as “I feel angry” or “I am feeling excited”. This is fine, and natural, but not likely to get us to the place where this is useful. Instead of stopping at that story, we can get curious and explore what we are truly desiring, and what of our own beliefs and values we are out of congruence with.

When we examine our feelings, learn to ask better questions about them, and make processing and rebalancing them a regular part of our daily routine, along with so many other aspects of personal hygiene, we can begin to build the unique and beautifully rich lives we are capable of. Developing a regular practice of exploring your own emotions while taking full responsibility for them will improve the quality of your life magnificently.

Emotional Hygiene then, is the term I will use in this book to refer to the process of doing the work of transforming your sense of overwhelm and strong emotions into fuel for positive evolution in your own life.

I have gathered questions used by Alan Watts, Oliver Wilde, in Byron Katie’s ‘the work’, and John Demartini’s ‘Demartini method’, as well as several others to create a framework that I find most helpful to clean up messy emotional states. By asking yourself these questions when you notice you are feeling dysregulated, or overwhelmed by emotion, you can learn to use the energy that would be squandered on strong emotional outbursts. You can stop reacting to life and start becoming the master of your own destiny. You can learn to take responsibility and control your own emotional states.

As long as we are blaming any outside forces for our internal state, we will be stuck in a reactive state, blown around by the winds of our own emotions and by the emotions of others. This is the key that nearly all successful people have figured out, and you can figure it out too. It does not require any special equipment, or anyone else to help you. Anyone who can ask and answer questions can benefit from this process.

Graphic of emotional reactivity vs straighter line of less extreme reactions.

You can gain more positive momentum in life by learning to ‘smooth out’ the extreme emotional reactions in your life. You can learn to catch them sooner. Practice recognizing them as potential fuel to propel/drive you forward, rather than allowing them to be things that knock you off course all the time.

When you realize you are feeling overwhelmed and playing a self-defeating story, or thinking the same bad-feeling thought over and over again, stop and ask yourself these simple questions. If you can, sit down with a pen and paper or at a keyboard or record yourself asking and answering, so you can revisit your answers.

The first set of questions to ask is:

Is that really true?

Is the whole truth?

How would I feel if it wasn’t true?

How is this serving me?

If your thoughts are blaming someone else, you can ask:

Where do I do this too?

How is this serving me to blame or shame this person?

You might be tempted to think “it isn’t” and shame yourself for having the thought. Or you might think “It is serving me by helping me set healthier boundaries”. I encourage you to go a bit deeper and circle back through the questions at least a few times.

Example:

Sometimes I do a written exercise which I call the 7-layer dip. I will circle back 5–7 times, asking myself

“Why do I think I think that is true?” to each iteration until I get to some new information.

I will give you an example: I have a repeating thought, which is that “People don’t understand me.”

“Why do I think I think that is true?” Because when I share details about my life they tend to shut me down or change the subject.

2. “Why do I think I think that is true?” I think I tend to overshare and have a hard time compartmentalizing my thoughts into more digestible portions.

3. “Why do I think I think that is true?” Probably because I am neurodivergent, my brain is wired with more connections and less pruning than the ‘average bear’.

4. “Why do I think I think that is true?” I have always been different from most of my peers…like anything it has pluses and minuses. One of the challenges is that I find it hard to relate to others and even harder to be relatable.

5. “Why do I think I think that is true?” I tend to stand out in a crowd or group, and I am often exceptionally good or bad at whatever the crowd is doing. I am rarely average.

6. “Why do I think I think that is true?” This is a story I have been cultivating my entire life. It is woven through the fabric of who I am, because it is who I choose to be, how I like being.

7. “Why do I think I think that is true?” I value diversity, being unique, and standing out as exceptional. I don’t mind ‘going against the grain’ or being odd in a society that values conformity. Most of the mentors I have chosen have helped me cultivate this in healthier ways. It’s an ongoing process.

Usually, by the seventh layer, I am getting into some ‘deeper truths’ and it gets easy to see how my superficial story is not ‘the whole truth’. Can you see how the deeper, more conscious truth feels a lot better in my body than the original, superficial, self-defeating thought?

This is an example of how I am creating my own reality, and if I do not take the time to bring awareness, or more consciousness to my self-defeating thoughts, I could waste a lot of energy looping in that victim mindset, rather than realizing everything is exactly the way I am cocreating it.

It is important to answer quickly and not overthink your answers. Remember, you are trying to get more in touch with your subconscious. This is work that is just for you. You never have to share it with anyone if you don’t want to. This is a self-examination. Get curious. Try not to be judgemental. Suspend your beliefs and disbeliefs and just see what comes to the surface for you. You might be surprised to discover that you know more than you think you do.

Acute and Chronic

I want to make a distinction between acute and chronic dysregulation. Acute dysregulation is a natural, healthy response to being alive. There are going to be things that happen that knock you off your feet, literally and metaphorically. To wish for no dysregulation, no suffering, no problems, is the wish of a dead person. That is not how living alive works. Birth and death are often violent, and lots of details in between are bewildering.

There are going to be days you feel great and other days you feel downright crummy. Lots of things are going to happen around you that you won’t be able to control. You are going to get blindsided by things in life, no matter how well-prepared, resilient, and fit you are. This is natural and normal and actually a healthy system that your body has developed to help alert you to dangers and possibilities.

Acute dysregulation is normal and may be unavoidable to an extent, however, there is a lot you can do to become more adept at feeling your emotions without becoming dysregulated, and also lessen the time that you remain in a dysregulated state.

Learning to become more emotionally fit is not about never becoming dysregulated. It is about learning to recognize when you are dysregulated and bringing yourself back to a regulated state more rapidly. I liken it to recognizing when my guitar is out of tune, and taking a minute to tune it back up before playing the next song.

If you let every unexpected ‘disaster’ or crisis be a valid reason to allow yourself to veer off course, then you will go through life reacting to the outside world, a slave to circumstance rather than the master of your own destiny. You are likely to wind up like the vast majority of people, never getting to the experiences they dream of, or perhaps not even dreaming at all. That would be a tragedy.

Instead, you can learn to examine your emotions, dive into them from a healthy perspective, and see what they are telling you about your life. Use them as information, be grateful for them, and learn to bring yourself back to a centered state more quickly so that you don’t get knocked off course so often or for so long. You can shift from living in hindsight to living in foresight. It simply takes doing it. It gets easier with practice.

You can learn to recognize the signs that you are dysregulated more quickly so you can take steps to bring yourself back into a more coherent and calm state. You can cultivate healthy skills and strategies that help you grow from your challenges rather than feel beat-down by failure over time. You can expand your capacity to feel your emotions in greater detail, to glean more of the valuable information your body is trying to communicate to you, without feeling victimized by your own system. It’s the key to developing healthy human relationships that don’t end in devastation and drama.

Let’s go back to the analogy of tuning my guitar. When I play it a lot, or don’t play for a long time, or play in fluctuating weather, or travel, or play particular songs that are high energy, it goes out of tune. That is not a failure or a problem. It simply means that I must make tuning it up a regular part of playing. There is a skill to it, and it gets easier with practice.

Anytime I am about to play my guitar, I tune it up first. Usually, if I am playing more than a short set, I will tune it up periodically again, as needed, or when I get an opportunity to give it a quick check now and again. This is a good analogy for how we can think of emotional fitness and self-mastery. The objective is not to never get ‘out of tune’, in fact, the more vibrantly we live our lives, the harder we play, the more frequently we are likely to need to tune things up. The goal is to develop the skills and awareness we need to keep ourselves tuned up to the best of our ability, so we can be the best we can be, and to enjoy the playing over the long run.

You may have heard the saying “Every person lives two lives, and the second one begins when they realize they only have one.” Similarly, I think that every person makes The Shift when they realize there is not One Big Shift. Rather, The Shift is that subtle but important decision to be responsible for your own thoughts, feelings, and actions that we all get to make again, and again, and again.

The Shift happens when you begin to cheerfully accept and appreciate the potentials and opportunities that every challenge in life is presenting you, and do your best to do your best. It’s about being ready to be ready. Being willing to succeed at failing. It’s about being confident and courageous and aiming to always be aiming to improve, with great humility.

(insert story and perhaps interview with Yeomi Parks’ escape from North Korea and her incredible journey to find freedom only to discover so many of us here are not very free…?)

We Ride At Dawn…At Dawn, We Ride. graphic/art Let’s GO! CHARGE!

Summary of Chapter One:

So here we are, brave heart, at the start of a great journey together, and also nearing the closing of an old cycle. Get ready to let go of old patterns and baggage that no longer serves you.

Now that we have covered some basic definitions and you are armed with some basic questions and your decision to become the master of your own emotions and destiny, we are ready to dive deeper into the tools you can use to help you develop a more coherent, less overwhelmed life.

(“Bag lady, you gonna hurt your back.” song)

Put down your worries and your firmly held beliefs about your limitations. Just for a while. If you can’t quite do that yet, try to imagine what it might feel like to put them down, just suspend them temporarily, just for right now. You can always pick them back up if you find they are serving you. In my experience, life offers a constant stream of things we can fret worry and feel slighted by, just as it also offers a constant stream of delights. It is up to us what we will choose as the decorative details of our lives.

An important aspect of this journey is learning when to let go and when to hold on. (Kenny Rogers — Know when to hold em, know when to fold em). Our aim is to develop clear and strong convictions that we hold loosely.

It will be scary at times. I do know. I have learned that when it becomes apparent to you that it is time to grow, and time to shed your old skin, release the old and busted beliefs and sayings and things that no longer serve you; it’s really best to relax, bend your knees a little bit, trust yourself, exhale, and let go. Holding on beyond the time that something is serving your progress will only slow down your inevitable growth, and it could also break off a fingernail or two.

I encourage you to keep your courage close, and keep in mind that feeling uncomfortable or even wildly uncertain sometimes is a natural part of this process. To desire to have no struggles and no discomfort is just not realistic for living a dynamic life. True living is messy.

Take heart in knowing it will be temporary, and as you practice this Shift, it will become easier and more natural. The gaps will become less uncomfortable, until such time you have grown so much you are ready to transform again.

It is also important to keep in mind that things happen in waves, in cycles, and it is natural for everything to ebb and flow to some extent. My mission here is to help you learn to ‘ride the waves’ of these cycles, ideally with some style and grace, while finding more joy and fulfillment in living your beautiful life.

Onwards and Upwards (do the best you can — perfection is the enemy of progress) (rocket?) (graphic of dysregulation/chaos vs wavey line up, rocket?

You are the secret sauce you have been waiting for. Stop waiting around for someone else to save you and decide you are going to steer the direction of your own life. Start now!

It’s important to keep in mind that life is always changing and as a part of life, so are we. If you don’t take up the reigns of your life and aim for something higher, you are likely to sink lower. If you don’t make your own goals a priority, you are likely to spend your time working for someone else who does.

All of us have choices, every second we are alive, which determine the overall trajectory of our lives. I urge you to take this to heart with a degree of urgency, brave heart. Aiming towards more mastery, towards a positive future, and believing in possibility is essential over the long run, and also, it is impossible to maintain every second, as much as we might like.

I have gathered all the tools, tips, techniques and strategies I could find. I have borrowed wisdom from experts from many fields, and from a variety of healing modalities. I also bring a rich tapestry of personal experiences of my own and of my clients (and famous examples). My mission is to bring you this practical field guide.

My hope is these tools will help you pull yourself from the self-sabotaging trauma-drama loops of being stuck in patterns you feel like you don’t know how to get out of. If you follow these steps from start to finish, you will have the framework to build a dream life that is potentially 10 or even 1 million times greater than anything you previously dreamed of.

First, I want to help you learn to self-regulate. Then you can become a master of your own growth and tap into your higher potential from a flow state. You can feel your feelings and not be overwhelmed by them, but instead, gather a deeper richness from your life through them. Thousands of articles are continuing to pile up containing evidence that what the ancient mystics knew long ago is very true.

You really can ‘think and grow rich’, but it might take a lot longer than you think. (see what I did there?) The secret is to learn to feel more, not less. You can learn to feel more of what you want and appreciate the feelings you don’t want as guidance to help you steer your life to follow your own desires and values.

By learning to tap into the universal wisdom you literally have woven into your fingertips and every other fiber of your body/being, you can become the master of your own emotions and the master of your own destiny.

Writing that, I feel it’s a bold claim, so let’s unpack that a bit more. The first step is taking responsibility and deciding you are going to do the necessary work to cultivate positive change in your life. The next step is going to be a bit of preparation in the way of looking at the terrain ahead, making a starting plan, and then leaping into the actual practice.

The actual practice needs to begin in earnest before you will begin to gather your own feedback and begin to make actual changes. So, here is the caveat to my claim:

This has the potential to help you significantly shift your life in a positive direction, but you will have to do the actual work to change it, and some of it might be downright hard.

See now my claim doesn’t seem so bold anymore, does it?

“No good plan survives first contact.”

The warm soft and cold hard truth is that there is no getting around the hard work of becoming more fit. Just like physical fitness takes regular, consistent action, so too does emotional fitness. Of course, they are interconnected, so improving one area of your life will generally make improving other areas easier. This is true so long as you continue to realign yourself with your own values.

Whatever you are trying to improve, it is going to take practice, and becoming more emotionally fit is no exception. The good news is that you really have nothing better to do, and the alternatives are much less enticing.

Are you still with me? Maaybe? Okay good.

(Story of family sailing around the world) — “If you wait for the boat and the weather and the plan all to be perfect, you might never leave the shore.” Let’s GO!

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The Shift, “Quit Hitting Yourself” — Chapter 2, (Part One)

Why we self-sabotage and how to stop it.

You are making things harder than they have to be.

We do it for security. Predictability. Pattern recognition. Sometimes we do it for novelty, love — external and internal validation. It can be complicated.

There have been many books written about how we meet our basic needs. Maslow’s pyramid of human needs was published 80 years ago and remains one of the pillars that gets referred to, even though a majority of humans do not have most of those met much of the time.

Just to review, those are listed as physiological needs at the base (food, water, shelter, clothes, and sleep). Dismal numbers of humans do not have these basics covered, or have them met poorly.

The next level up is safety and security. This includes some predictability. Many of us strive to create any sense of predictability, even if it is not pleasant or healthy.

Next up comes love and belonging. Many of us do not have that need met from early on. Many of us develop unhealthy patterns to cope with the lack of it. We ‘belong ourselves’ to outcasts and unhealthy habits. We seek external validation and find all sorts of shitty ways to get it, or think we are getting it. Many of us find our sense of belonging in addictive patterns with food, drugs, television programs, or other not-so-healthy habits.

Then comes self-esteem, and on the top is self-actualization. I suppose I am still working on these. Sometimes I feel I have come a long way. Other times it feels like I have a long way to climb.

I have built my self-esteem and done a good deal of self-actualizing, but with a shaky foundation. So even though I spend a lot of energy meeting those needs, they sometimes crumble on the instability of the unmet needs underneath. I sometimes find myself looping around the victim-martyr-perpetrator triangle; on a ‘low-flying disk’. How about you? Do you ‘feel me’?

Humans love doing hard things. Maybe mostly because it can build strength and add to our sense of accomplishment. Maybe we think it has something to do with our value, our worthiness. Maybe it feeds our self-esteem.

It is important to consciously examine our actions. Our behaviors and efforts need to be in alignment, coherent, and congruent with our values. This takes examining our values.

Understanding what your own values are is a key to getting yourself back to a more regulated state. Living out of congruence with your own values will lead to feelings of discordance and incoherence.

Take a few minutes now to think about what your personal values are. Write down all the things you value most. Is it honesty? Creativity? Stability? Family? You may have a long list of things you value. See if you can narrow it down to the top 3–5.

Mine are creativity, curiosity, courage, and authenticity. They will not be the same for everyone. This is part of our uniqueness. It’s a beautiful aspect of humanity that we care deeply about different things.

Take some time to reflect on your own values and become conscious of them. Then take some time to reflect on your actions and see if your day-to-day behaviors are supporting or hindering your alignment with your own values.

This is an exercise that should be done regularly. It’s a good idea to reflect on them daily, at least briefly. It can be helpful to do a deeper self-inquiry monthly, seasonally, or at least once a year. Your top values might change over the course of your lifetime, though generally, they will remain fairly consistent once you get really clear about what they are.

Incongruence with our values is at the heart of self-sabotage. Our emotions are our bodies’ way of communicating our nuanced, multisensory inputs. These inputs then get filtered through our lexicon of stories, memories, words, frames, and possibilities. When the stories we are telling ourselves about our emotions do not align with our values and beliefs, we experience incoherence or discordance.

How are you making things harder than they have to be?

Are you repeating self-defeating stories?

We create stories of ‘feeling’ which then get reinterpreted by our emotional systems in a constant feedback loop. The stories we tell ourselves about the emotions and other data we are collecting and aware of then reinforce themselves.

A key to overcoming self-sabotage is to recognize this and shift the story. An easy way to do this is to ask yourself better questions. Learn to pause when you recognize you are spiraling in a ‘trauma loop’, raise your frequency, and use your own dysfunction as an invitation to grow and improve. Untangle those thoughts that are causing incoherence in your body.

It is very common for us to repeat self-defeating narratives to ourselves — “No one loves me”, “I must be unlovable”, “I am not good enough”, “People never do as much for me as I do for them”, “I think I can help if I sacrifice a little more myself…” — these are all thoughts that often drag us down into the ‘pit of despair’.

A quick way out is to decide to be more honest and gentle with yourself. When you find yourself repeating a negative thought, ask yourself,

“Is that really true?”

“Is this the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“How would it be if I didn’t believe this?”

You may convince yourself that it is true, at least right now. Check in with how it feels in your body. When you are telling yourself the truth, it will feel better. If you are really honest with yourself, and approach your question with the intention of getting at the real truth, you will see that our human minds are very limited and nothing we think is ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth’.

Disrupt the pattern.

Disruption doesn’t always feel good. In fact, it often feels uncomfortable, scary, or even ‘wrong’ at the beginning.

Growth requires letting go of old patterns and being willing to be uncomfortable in new, unfamiliar situations and mindsets.

“Don’t hold on to a mistake just because you have been making it a long time.”

Very often we repeat negative self-defeating thoughts as a way of ‘proving our limitations’. If you keep doing that, it might seem more and more true. The way out of this loop is to interrupt the pattern.

If you can’t quite shift to a more positive or expansive thought at first, try some healthy distraction. Disrupt the pattern. Change your routine. Change your surroundings. Take a trip or rearrange your furniture. Wear a different type of outfit. Disrupting the pattern can help you create a little space, a little potential, a little room for something lighter to come in.

Accepting behaviors in others is the same as accepting the same behaviors in oneself on some level. Rejecting others is the same as rejecting parts of yourself.*

There is a subtle but important distinction between accepting and loving. You can accept and even appreciate patterns of behavior without engaging with them. You can allow them to be but not invite them in. By not tuning to or entangling with familiar patterns, you can create the necessary space for new patterns to emerge.

Document your progress!

One way to help overcome this self-defeating habit is to collect evidence of your progress and successes. Keep a journal, and specifically, a journal of successes and triumphs.

Although it is important to process negative emotions, limiting beliefs, fears and resentments, it is also necessary to develop the skill of seeing and celebrating your successes and wins. Remember, like any habit, this takes practice. Don’t beat yourself up if it seems difficult at first. Simply return to your resolve to love yourself, to improve, and to make positive progress. Let go of the self-defeating self-talk whenever you recognize it.

Build evidence in your favor. One way we self-sabotage is by not being honest with ourselves. Another is that we may be allowing incongruent or self-defeating beliefs to govern our actions and beliefs.

If you have been practicing the same patterns for a long time, years or decades, or perhaps lifetimes, you may be unconsciously collecting evidence to support a belief that you are defective or broken. There will be more and more convincing evidence of this the more you practice creating and collecting it. The same is true when we collect evidence of our success. So focus on creating and collecting evidence of your successes instead.

It is important to make a practice of collecting this evidence for yourself, to help light your own way out of despair. Keep a celebration journal, a scrapbook, or a ‘cookie jar’ of ‘wins’. Collect evidence of those positive moments and things you have set out to do and done. Over time you can build a great ‘arsenal’ of evidence to help pull you up.

Believe in yourself!

She who believes she can, and she who believes she cannot are both right.

Belief is a keystone of accomplishment, and is an area many humans fail, before they even start. If you tell yourself you can’t, then you probably won’t. A first step in this shift is to stop telling yourself you can’t, and at least believe there is a possibility. Maybe you can.

We used to believe that running a mile in less than one minute was physically impossible. Then someone did it, and now many people do it. We used to believe flight was impossible. Now we have planes going all around the world every day and even send rockets into space.

Believe that you can change your mindset and learn to stop self-sabotaging. Believe that you can cultivate a life you love. Believe that you are worthy of your own love. You will be closer to achieving this once you believe in your ability. If you don’t quite believe it yet, try to pretend that you do, just for now.*

How can we stop the self-sabotage? (giving up too soon, subconscious programs — the ant and the elephant RAISING YOUR CONSCIOUS STATE) (graphic of pushing boulder uphill, graphic of consciousness states)

Be willing to stand out, go alone, and hold yourself in a higher state even when those around you do not.

Many humans tend to stay in the lower states of consciousness because it is familiar and because this is where the majority often operates. It is common to use the idea of love to manipulate and devastate one another. “Hurt people hurt people.” Wounded people often lash out and try to hurt others. This can be seen as unconsciousness and incoherence. Try not to take it personally, for if you do, you could become incoherent and less conscious too.

When I notice someone seems to be lashing out or hurting others intentionally, I imagine they are like a wounded animal tied to a post. This helps me to not take it personally. I can try to help, and also keep myself safe.

Remember that when a person is wounded, they are not acting completely consciously. They are not behaving rationally. While they might not intentionally hurt others, they are still likely to. This is why it is important to treat angry or wounded people with compassion and also not get too entangled with them.

As soon as you accept full responsibility for your life, you might feel overwhelmed by all the mistakes you’ve made up until this point. You might feel guilty or ashamed for hurting others who tried to get close to you. You might start wondering, “What even is the point?” You might wallow in disbelief for a time proclaiming “This is not by beautiful life.”

You might be tempted to slip back into that victim, or limited mindset, and get in your own way some more, continuing to play the “look what you made me do game”. If you do, remember this is a normal part of the human condition. Don’t keep making the same mistake just because you have spent a lot of time making it. Remember you can shift, and just do the best you can to let go of the negative self-talk and focus on the values you want to cultivate in your life.

It is a very common human habit to blame others and slip into that victim mindset and look at what is happening as if it is happening “to you”. It is up to you to ‘take the reigns’ of your own life and train your mind into better patterns of thought.

It is always tempting to blame it all on someone else and not take responsibility for our own mistakes or shortcomings. Sometimes it seems easier to give in to old patterns of blame, criticism, and resentment rather than set about cleaning up the messes we’ve made. It can be difficult to muster the courage to ‘do your best to do better, especially knowing you are likely to ‘fail’ again.

Society at large tends to fall to the lowest common denominator. If you don’t first bring yourself to a higher frequency, and learn to hold yourself there, it will be difficult to ‘tap into’ this higher frequency. However, if you do, you can then connect to other humans who are also ‘tapping in’, and together we can do incredible things. It’s a dance of sorts, between holding yourself accountable to yourself and your personal values and also learning to get ‘in flow’ with the collective of conscious beings.

I urge you to do it anyway, especially when it seems difficult. The alternative is to spiral farther down into your own self-made hell. You are likely to drag many others down with you, even when you don’t mean to. We all need each other to pull up, lift ourselves from our own despair, focus on staying conscious and getting healthy so we can best face the coming storms.

In the same way that regular physical exercise will develop a healthier body, regular mental practices will develop a healthier mind. It takes time, and some days it will be easier than others. This is the dynamic dance of life.

Society at large will encourage you to slip back into mediocrity and disempowerment. As they say, ‘misery loves company’, and people love to see others succeed, until they are succeeding more than they perceive themselves to be, and then they often turn a bit nasty.

The analogy of crabs in a crab pot is popular in this context. However, crabs do not pull each other back down in the pot because they don’t want to see other crabs escape. They pull each other down because they want to escape, and they try to use any means they can, including grabbing onto other crabs to try to pull themselves out. Humans can be like this too.

We humans can collaborate. We can work together in ways that crabs cannot. We do sometimes pull each other down due to envy, but more often, it is because we feel separate, and on our own, and so unconsciously pull others down as we try to lift ourselves out of our own lower states. The secret then, is to elevate our own emotional and physical state from the inside. This, we can do with conscious coherence.

We can cultivate more conscious coherence by deliberately elevating our energetic state and connecting to a broader field of consciousness. Some people call this God. Some call it consciousness. I like to think of it in terms of frequencies and coherence. Really though, it is all the same stuff.

Get to higher ground. Shift your perspective. Realize you are not alone.

There is a lot more to this Universe than a single human can fathom. When we connect our energy to other humans and raise our own vibration, we can do incredible things. This is what has allowed us to become so successful in life, and what can allow any single human to create more successful outcomes.

It is important not to fall into ‘the pit of despair’ or start ‘playing the blame game’ or wallowing in self-pity at this stage. Recognize this is a natural part of the process and nothing to make a big ‘huge hairy deal’ about. Keep it in perspective.

It’s an important step to begin to recognize when you are repeating self-defeating thoughts or actions. When you recognize an underlying belief that does not serve you in your quest to move closer to your personal goals and mission, try to appreciate that you have become more self-aware. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Congratulate yourself for being self-aware. Then shift.

If you do fall back into the pit of despair, realize this is a normal part of the process. You can make the shift and change direction at any time. It is difficult to see evidence of progress at first. If you have been collecting evidence of your victimhood for a long time it is likely to take some persistence to begin to see glimmers and sparks that show you you are making progress.

If all this seems like too much right now, take heart, brave heart. You don’t need to ‘swallow the whole thing right now’. Just bite off a little bit. Take a tiny step in a better direction. I think we have all been in that sometimes surreal, disheartened place of bewilderment and disappointment. We all know that feeling of failure, where we can clearly see that we caused our hardship.

Give Yourself A Gold Star!

Right now, even if you are feeling uncertain about how to proceed, you can celebrate yourself for coming this far, and getting to this stage. I recommend that you do. Get in the habit of celebrating your successes, starting now. Now that you are recognizing that you are the biggest thing getting in your own way, you can get to the important business of coming back into alignment with your truest, most authentic, uniquely-qualified-to-be-you, self.

Though you might be thinking you can’t possibly make it to where you want to get to from where you are now, I assure you, that is simply your self-limiting default mode network talking. That is what your brain naturally thinks when it doesn’t know. It is simply trying to protect you. However, too much safety leads to the death of everything. This book holds the keys to help you re-program your default mode network and reticular activating system to serve you better.

You can change. In fact, change is inevitable. The question is, how much agency will you claim over the changes in your life? Will you take the reigns and steer yourself towards the goals you choose, or will you allow yourself to be blown around by the winds of change without taking up your own power of responsibility? The choice is always yours.

There are paths and shortcuts you don’t know about yet. As you learn to trust yourself in this process of coming to be, you will find the necessary clarity and skills become clearer as you get closer to them. You don’t need to be able to see the entire journey clearly to take the first step. You have already taken a big step by opening this book and coming this far.

If your mind is insisting on playing your limiting beliefs on repeat, see if you can get them to lighten up a little, or perhaps, get your mind to set them aside temporarily to explore some ‘what if’s’ and rekindle some sparks of possibility in your life.

So, at least for right now, let’s set down that limiting belief. Press pause on it, and just set it aside for now. You can always come back to it and press play again if you decide it better serves you. The default mode is always there, willing to sweep you back into your repeating patterns. At least for now, let’s agree to set a goal to try out new tools, and see if any of them lead to improvement. Deal? What have you got to lose?

Embrace Failure as Feedback

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” — Thomas A. Edison

Get ready for some Cha-Cha-Cha, baby (are you ready to swing?) dancing graphic — Two steps forward, one step back…

While it is important to have a goal or mission, make a plan, and prepare for your journey as best as you can, it is also important to recognize that you will fail. A lot. This does not mean it is futile to try. It does mean that it is important to ‘enjoy the ride’. Spend the majority of your time doing things that satisfy you even when you don’t succeed. It is the process of becoming who we want to be that the magic lies, not in having been.

The point is not to never make mistakes but to learn and improve all along the way, and of course, to enjoy the journey itself. Failures are guaranteed, success is not. By learning to enjoy the learning, you will be building in an ‘alternative’ unavoidable type of success.

If your journey is epic, you will encounter many unexpected failures and successes; so your plan must be adjustable, malleable, and flexible. Get clear about your ‘why’ before you set out. What values are you aiming to cultivate? What is most important to you in this life? What’s the “big why” that motivates you?

In those times when all else becomes murky or incoherent, you can use this ‘big why’ as a guide to help you unfreeze, take action, and find more secure footing again. Remember that taking action is an important key to moving through things more quickly. Keep in mind that stillness is also a valid option and helps us correct our alignment quickly sometimes too.

The truth is, your emotional dysregulation and feelings that feel overwhelming are there to help guide you back on course.

Did you ever play the ‘hot-cold’ hide and seek game? When you are looking for someone or something and someone tells you when you are ‘getting warmer’ or ‘getting colder’, or ‘very hot’ or ‘very cold’? This is similar to the way our limbic systems operate.

I find it helpful to think of my body’s communication system as an infant or very young child. It is pure and simple in its desires and needs and communication style. Your guidance system will tell you when you are out of alignment, off course, and not acting in accordance with your internal values. Learn to listen to your own guidance system with the same gentle compassion that you would listen to a young child.

I often hear people say that they have learned not to trust their emotions. It is common to get advise to not make decisions based on feelings or emotions. This is only partly true. It is true that it is best not to make decisions when you are in a dysregulated state. When emotions or feelings are strong, we are dysregulated. However, if you take some time to figure out why you are feeling the way you do, you will discover there is great wisdom that your feelings and emotions are offering you.

When you realize that your emotions are on your side, you can begin to take responsibility for your own state of consciousness. You can help humanity move in the direction of more sanity and communication and cooperation, rather than adding your personal energy to the chaos and dysfunction. Learn to recognize that overwhelm is a signal from your system that you need to change your thoughts and actions.

Your ‘official’ invitation to climb out of the pit of despair, at least for a little while, just for a moment, right now — suspending disbelief and belief, opening the doors to possibility/draw a third door (graphic/art!)* Golden Ticket/Permission Slip/Invitation.

Whenever and wherever you can, plant seeds of hope.

If you feel like you are in ‘so deep’ already in the ‘pit of despair’ that you don’t believe there is a way out, take heart, brave heart. There can be hope if you choose to make a space for it to sprout, take hold, and if you decide to cultivate it in your own heart. This is how humanity builds and passes on hope, from generation to generation, from relationship to relationship, from story to story.

You can pull yourself out of the pit very easily when you start to ask and answer these questions honestly.

How is this serving me?

What is the other end of this ‘stick’?

How would it be if I didn’t believe this thought?

Elephants and Ants

Let’s pause here and address an elephant in the room. You are most likely thinking about at least one aspect of your life that feels hopeless to change right now. Perhaps you lost your legs in an accident, or perhaps you are caring for a child or parent who is dependent on you and takes so much of your energy you can’t fathom how it will be okay.

Put a small layer of possibility around that thought for now. Remember things can always be worse, and they can always get better. If you can’t find a way to feel okay about it, try to leave it alone for the time being. Just do the best you can from where you are right now. It will get easier with practice.

I am not asking you to believe in the impossible. I am simply asking you to ‘suspend your disbelief’ for a time, similar to the way you might when you watch a movie. Imagine what it might be like if you could get around that impossible obstacle and allow yourself to contemplate the possibilities of your life outside the confines of your limitations, even if just for a short time.

Throughout human history, people have documented their various journeys through these “dark nights of the soul”. We need each other as much as ever right now. Your successful shift matters. You matter.

We all will be examples and warnings to others along the way. It is up to you to determine and cultivate how much of your story will be a positive signpost. What will be good examples for others, and what will be warnings? This will get easier with practice.

There are parts of this journey you will find much-needed support. However, the hardest parts of this journey are the parts you can only do alone. I don’t mean to downplay how it feels though. It sometimes feels like the sky is falling, and it’s the end of the world. This is your invitation to step out of that story for just a moment. Suspend that belief, that way of thinking, just temporarily.

Consider that just like in the story of Chicken Little, the sky that appears to be falling could be a misinterpretation of something sillier than you think, like a falling leaf.

Is it possible that the sky isn’t actually falling?

If it is actually falling, does screaming or crying or melting down into a feeble puddle help at all?

Can you see that history gives us evidence that things go on more often than not?

Can we agree that everything is ultimately temporary, at least on a long enough timeline?

Can you imagine entertaining the idea that it might be possible to untangle all those knots and feel clear and coherent again?

Remember, you have made it this far, no doubt you have successfully navigated a lot of this terrain before. You are stronger than you think. Check in with your body and remember that humans have been enduring struggles and triumphs for thousands of years. In fact, all of our greatest achievements have come from overcoming great challenges.

See if you can create a small space of possibility for yourself to heal. Give yourself permission to take a little time to figure this out. Find the keys to unlock your unique gifts, which are always gems hidden in our unique shadows. See if you can shift your perception and your energy a little bit. That is all it takes to build upon. One tiny spark of hope.

“Ember/Mustard seed quote”

*Yeah but… what if it still seems very dark? (the ant on the elephant)

Do not lose heart! Remember that the struggle is a normal part of the process. It is not as bad as you think. It is probably worse and better than you think.

So, why do we self-sabotage and how can we stop it, or at least stop doing it as often? As it turns out, there are reasons for our self-sabotage, and those reasons are generally hiding in the subconscious.

The ant on the back of the elephant in the room — why we self-sabotage (what’s it all about) (graphic art — elephant and ant) — Disconnection vs Connection — incoherence vs coherence — in tune or out of tune and also, moving in the ‘right direction’ or moving towards your values getting farther from them.

Your subconscious is vastly more influential to your behaviors and beliefs than your consciousness is. You might see the relationship between conscious and subconscious depicted as an iceberg, where 90% of it is below the surface and the 10% you can see represents your consciousness — what you are actually aware of.

I don’t think this is a very accurate or helpful analogy because it leads us to believe that what we are aware of as thoughts and feelings are more significant than they actually are, or that our conscious interpretations are actually our reality. The ratio is probably closer to 99.999% subconscious and superconscious, and .0001% conscious, closer to the ratio of an elephant to an ant.

(Graphic of elephant — subconscious, earth — superconscious, and ant — individual awareness/consciousness*)

Your subconscious (and our collective superconsciousness?) is vast in comparison to what you are consciously aware of at any point. Our bodies are comprised of 7–80 or so trillion cells (according to current estimates, depending on how we imagine counting them) which are taking in and exchanging data all the time.

Our bodies are interacting with our internal and external environments, and communicating in ways we have not even thought of yet. There is a whole lot more going on under the surface than we can figure out with our conscious minds. This is why paying attention to your energetic state and learning to cultivate coherence in your body is so valuable.

Your subconscious is more like an elephant to your conscious “ant” mind. We are often consciously striving towards our goals, while the elephant of our subconsciousness is lumbering along in a completely different direction. This is why it is important to spend time getting to “know thyself”, and why talk therapy and various ways of remembering our past can be helpful in understanding and untangling the ways we are self-sabotaging.

Coherence in your body is a signal that the ant of your conscious mind and the elephant of your subconscious are moving in the same, or at least, in more congruent directions. Dysregulation or incongruence is a signal that your ant and your elephant are not moving in the same direction.

Regaining coherence or alignment or integrity between your subconscious programming and your conscious desires should become your first priority. When this does not feel possible, do the best you can, and try to remember that is still a success, especially compared to the alternative.

Your subconsciousness includes what is unconscious — like stored memories and knowledge you can recall but aren’t walking around thinking about all the time — and the superconscious — which is the generational, genetic information you are given from your ancestors and previous generations, and the time in human history, the cultures and families you are born into. The superconscious and the unconscious and the infinitely vast void make up your unconsciousness.

A better analogy might be a dancing bundle of crystalized light on a speck of dust, hurtling through a cosmos of space so vast we cannot perceive any end to it. The point is, we are tiny, shiny specks of something far more vast than our conscious minds can comprehend. There is a lot more going on in and around you than you are aware of.

We repeat the same patterns in an unconscious attempt to create different results. By becoming aware of the underlying beliefs that are causing us to create and recreate these patterns, we can consciously change them. When we realize they no longer serve us and may be getting in the way of us becoming the person we want to be, we are making progress towards positive change.

This is why many people use prayer or meditation. I recommend you find some practice that works for you to regularly check in with your energetic state. Develop a practice of re-tuning yourself to the greater frequencies of life. Remember, there is not ‘one way’ to do this, although there are many ways that others have explored that you can learn from. If you are unclear about where to start, ‘imitate a master’ until you begin to develop your own way.

Ant and elephant graphic (“why does it feel like I am going backwards faster and faster, the harder I try?”) Using your feelings as a guidance system…

You can think of that uneasy feeling, that feeling of disorder and dysfunction, as a misalignment between your ant and your elephant. As your ant moves more and more against the direction of your values, the distortions and dysfunction will grow stronger and stronger. This is your body telling you to ‘turn’! Adjust your course! “You are getting colder!” Take heed. Listen to your heart. Your body knows the way, instinctively, and also, your conscious inputs will help influence your own instincts.

If you simply suppress your feelings, or armor or numb yourself against the feelings of being off course, you can end up far out from your true nature. Your natural state is to be coherent. Your whole self wants to be in integrity. All you need to do is relax. Take your foot off the gas when it feels like you might be going the wrong way. Stop resisting and fighting and focusing on what is wrong on your life. You will naturally come back into more alignment.

This is more true if you surround yourself with others who are also in coherence, and harder to do if you are surrounded by people who are stuck in the struggle. We humans are connected, and our energetic states are contagious to one another. This is why they say you are the combination of the five people you spend the most time with, and why it is important to choose your friends and colleagues wisely.

Of course, sometimes the danger and unknown is something we do want to get through. With practice, you will get better at bringing your awareness into your body to check for alignment and listen to your own intuition for guidance.

As you get more in touch with your underlying desires and bring more of your subconscious into the light of consciousness, you will gain congruence and alignment of your conscious actions with your subconscious needs and desires. By its nature, the subconscious will always be much more vast than your conscious mind. This is why it is also important to utilize tools that address your energetic state overall. We can consciously participate in the unconscious programs that are running in the background, and we can improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which they are running.

Are you getting a clear signal? (graphic of coherence, graphic of bandwidth) — Distortion portion?

This is biology, baby.

It’s important to remember that your body’s systems are geared towards keeping you alive, and propagating our species, above all else. Homeostasis is the first priority. So when you realize you are feeling dysregulated, the first place to look for solutions is those simple, basic bodily functions.

Are you hungry? Dehydrated? Tired?

Do you need more sunlight, fresh air, or loving touch?

Although these are simple, in our modern world sometimes the solutions can seem a bit complex. Much of our food and water supply is tainted with chemicals, or overladen with sugars which can lead to metabolic dysfunction. Nourishing touch and fresh air are not always abundantly available.

It’s important to recognize this and at the same time, to do the best you can and trust that your body, and the Earth’s systems are more resilient than you might think. Do the best you can with what you have, from where you are.

Take little steps in the right direction and build momentum that way. Do not let the lack of any one system be a reason to abandon all hope. Find a crack, a door, a window, and if you can’t find one, imagine you can. That is enough for now.

What would you do if you had everything you need?

How can you get closer to that?

All this is temporary! (Death meditation?)

It is also important to realize that no body gets out of life alive. Everything in this temporal plane is temporary. Every body dies. I know that is an unpopular thought in our culture, however, it is still very true.

By recognizing this, you can save yourself a great deal of agony and suffering. Try not to hold on to old stories and wounds from your past. The past is not where you are going. The aging process varies and yet it is similar for all of us. If you can learn to embrace this fact it can bring you a greater sense of appreciation for the life you have right now.

There is really only NOW, after all. The Great Mystery of Life offers endless surprises. It is also quite predictable. Everything born, eventually dies. Coming to terms with that regularly can help you focus on the present moment and make the most of it. All this is temporary.

Do you know what you know?

There are things you know, things you don’t know. There are things you don’t know you don’t know. There are also things you don’t know you know. This is the source of your self-sabotaging.

When you start to pay more attention to your energetic state, and invite more of your subconscious to be illuminated, you will begin to see how everything is beautifully orchestrated. I am not going to tell you that is evidence of anything in particular, because I am not sure it is, but I can tell you that understanding this, in whatever way you can bring yourself to understand it, is going to be a key to help you unlock your stored capacity.

Pattern Recognition and the Pause is a skill you can develop.

What are the patterns in your life showing you?

/(Minding/Finding your conscious state) (graphic art of choas/patterns with zooming out?) in pattern, seeing the forest for the trees, the wood for the forest, the tree for the wood/forest…)

Summary of Chapter Two:

Your emotions are not random, and they are not meaningless, and they are not defects. They are also not ‘facts’. They are signs and signals. They are clues you can use as guidance. Emotions and feelings and intuitions are your body telling you when your elephant and your ant are or are not moving in the same direction.

If you are living out of alignment with your own underlying values, you will experience increasingly disruptive and distorted emotions, as your body tries to guide you back into alignment. This includes and begins with your basic bodily functions.

We all need clean air, fresh water, nourishment, and movement. We all crave some security and also some surprise. This is part of the dynamic dance of being alive.

Our current paradigm of labeling things as disorders can be harmful to our healing process. When we believe these are permanent states or defects rather than tools to help us steer our lives we can miss the opportunity they hold. I encourage you to question any narrative that tells you you are defective, broken, uncurable, or stuck where you are. Distracting, drugging, or wallowing in our emotions instead of using them for fuel is an absurdity that I look forward to seeing us transcend.

I don’t know anyone who has not experienced self-sabotage to at least some degree. If you are anything like me, you may be so familiar with it that sometimes it almost seems like a strange friend. Current ‘western civilization’ has normalized dysfunction and convinced people that living half alive is the best we can hope for. This, my not-so-strange friend, is much more ‘normal’ than you might think, and also, we can do much better. In fact, your resistance and self-sabotage can be a key to unlocking undiscovered and powerfully creative aspects of yourself.

This is your invitation to unlock a new level of your underdeveloped superpower. If you are willing to put down your judgments, shame, and blame, and get curious about why you are feeling the way you do, your resistance can be a clue for you, which is specific to you.

The patterns you begin to recognize in your own life can be the keys to unlocking insights about how the very things that are getting in your way can also be your greatest superpower. Anytime you find yourself thinking ‘Why does this always happen to me?”, or feeling frustrated because you feel like you are caught in an episode of Groundhog Day, take a moment to congratulate yourself for recognizing that pattern and pause.

Use a brief pause, a moment of awareness to take note of what is going on around you and in your life. Notice what is going on inside you, in your thoughts/mind, and in your body when you realize you are in a familiar, self-defeating, or limiting pattern. If you don’t know why you have a certain feeling or think maybe you don’t want anymore, get curious. Ask yourself “How is this serving me?”

Chaos is simply, ‘that which is outside our ability to see the pattern of”. In a way, this is similar to what many humans call god. It may be the opposite end of it , since most of us think of god as a ‘divine order’, but really this is just that we are not capable of seeing the order of it, yet.

To my perception “god” is what we see as ordered but beyond our ability to fully comprehend. We often ascribe ‘metaphysical’ or magic properties to the aspects that feel ‘good’, and chaos to the other end of the same stick. It is that which we perceive as dark and disordered, but is also that which is merely larger than our ability to see the order in. Things we once found chaotic, invariably turn out to have a rhythm and a pattern when you ‘zoom out’ far enough in time-space. Exploding stars make perfect sense in the context of the dancing arms of galaxies.

“…by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” (The Velveteen Rabbit)

Looking forward and back (graphic/art)

Let’s talk about your future former self. David Goggins has a very inspiring life story (look into it if you are not familiar), and one of the tools he talks about using to overcome his darkest moments and rise rather than fall to self-defeat, is to think about how your whole life can change in a split second, and imagine looking back on the current moment from your last moment. By collapsing the timeline of your life, you can gain a sense of clarity and also tap into a source of energy you might not know you have.

Particles and waves — collapsing the waves of potential to take decisive action!)*

When you imagine yourself old and at the end of your life, who do you want to be?

What do you hope others say and think about you?

What might you regret if you don’t at least try to become it?

What unique parts of you are dying right now, and what are you willing to do to really discover, uncover, and cultivate the one true beautiful you?

A special note about innovation, creativity, spontaneity and going with the flow:

At times in my life I have leaned heavily on intuition to navigate. Although it has added momentum I might not have had and brought me to places I could never get to if I let logic and reason have too much of a say in things. Building the Head Hutt, I took many risks and made many mistakes. The result was a unique, one-of-a-kind, fantastic structure that will last decades. I am very proud of it, and it would not exist if I had not broken many rules and allowed myself to explore and learn things for myself ‘the hard way’ in many cases.

Is it perfect? Far from it. Do I love it? Absolutely. Would it exist if I had taken time to get everything right and know what I was doing before I started? Nope. Definitely not.